


Tight knots

by Amaru_Katari



Series: Griffindor tie(s) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 00:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaru_Katari/pseuds/Amaru_Katari
Summary: Things are made different when magic is not involved.Or: in wich auror Shacklebolt wishes things were different.





	Tight knots

Kingsley Shacklebolt was irritated. It didn’t have much to do with the fact that his apparition point was in the middle of the cramped muggle house of an old squib, or that the myriad cats she had trapped in said house tried to run in between his legs, or to climb upon his back, or that there were so many that he had inevitably stepped on many tails and paws in the short two minutes he was in the place, but with the fact that he had to be in the scene of a suicide and still hear the stupid ramblings of the muggles who had been the neighbors of one Harry Potter.

“It must have been some kind of tantrum gone wrong” the older ones were the worst, always very set on their own knowledge and most of the time very wrong “that child was trouble I tell you!”

It was somewhat of a relief that the policeman who was taking the report from that particular man had no qualms in telling the man to be respectful or to make himself scarce.

He was still in the foyer of the two-story house, watching as the woman who had found the body and tried to reanimate it for twenty minutes was being hugged by a tall teenager who towered over her. The agents who were in place when he arrived told him that she had said that she supposedly followed the ghost of the child inside the house and all the way towards his room. They suspected she was just a noisy neighbor who got a nasty surprise and invented some story to deal with that after her screams alerted the next-door neighbor who had called the bobbies.

She had a faraway look in her eyes and seemed to be crying, even if her eyes were fixed in one point above her son’s shoulder and unblinkingly dull. The woman was going to be in need of help to forget everything, and not only the magical one.

The Auror sighed. This was going to be a long week, and it hadn’t even started.

The good news, if there were any, were that _The Prophet_ still was on the dark about this; he could imagine the headlines. Maybe “ _Muggles accomplish what You-Know-Who couldn’t!”_ or some drivel like that, it was mostly dependent on how polemic of a mood Rita Skeeter was.

A cluttering noise made him turn his head to the house. The muggles who had been in charge of collecting the body were moving towards an ambulance, directing a complicated stretcher with a small black body bag on it, all amongst a silence he couldn’t have thought could be so very solemn given their protective wear.

“We are done in there, detective” one of the men said, voice muffled by the protective mask that still covered his face “we will take him to the hospital for autopsy”

Kingsley wanted to protest: why would they realize such thing? Wasn’t it obvious what the child had done? Why would they vandalize the body?

“Is… is normal procedure sir” explained the man hastily “we have to discard foul play”

“I’m sorry” he excused himself, and tried to compose his grimace into something that would make him look the part of the hardened Scotland Yard detective he was not “Is a child… I mean, this just seems wrong”

“Yeah, I know” the man raised a hand and pulled off the mask. Underneath it, a young man, no older than thirty-five, looked at him with a pitying expression “The kids are always the hardest, furthermore in abusive backgrounds. You kinda expect their families to… You know” he made a vague gesture with his hand, but then nodded his head towards the body and shrugged “He is not the first nor the last. Unfortunately, this is not all that uncommon and you get accustomed”

“And the results of the autopsy?” he asked with more finality than he would have wanted to express. As an Auror you get acquainted with some level of morbid talk, but the muggles were more adept at that (their world was without magic in more than one sense), and it always pulled all the wrong flags in Kingsley. The man raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

“Tomorrow sir” he answered, looking at a list strapped in a clipboard “Some higher up has put his case as high priority. Pretty quickly, right?”

“Yes, very”

“Uhm… sir? You knew him?”

“No”

He took the chance to stop talking with the muggle when the blonde woman saw the body bag and started crying earnestly and very noisily, trembling so badly that she would have fallen to her knees had not been for the teenager that was all but carrying her. As it was, her sobs followed Kingsley inside the otherwise unassuming house.

The Dursleys, the owners, were yet to be found and -judging by the state of the body- were likely to land in jail for negligence, and abuse, and a whole list of charges yet to be drawn. Not to mention the dubious honor of being front and center of the very destructive attention of the Wizarding World.

He climbed the stairs, watching the muggles taking photos of every little thing that they guessed could be of interest and some of his Aurors waving their wands in the patterns of charms commonly used to identify residues of the unforgivables or destructive magic, all the while under the protection of Notice-Me-Not charms, and ushered the one that was still drawing runes in the child’s room before entering.

The floor was cluttered with cans (in different states of fullness) and all kinds of clutter, including the forgotten cage of the child’s owl and old rags that were arranged into a pile in one corner. He fixed his gaze in the window where part of a red and gold tie was still tied in a knot.

He thought of the body bag and the little child inside.

He took a deep breath and tried to not think on the way things would change, in all the lost opportunities, and how the world would still keep moving, even if it seemed that it shouldn’t.

What a shame.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it has been a long five (five?!) months, and a lot has happened. 
> 
> As I suspected, my family broke at the seams, with everyone giving their opinion on who was more at fault (unfortunately, my uncle's death was motivated by monetary reasons, so... well...), I got send to the psychiatrist (for unrelated reasons, although my family seems to run on depression and anxiety), and the medication seems to be doing its job, I broke up with my boyfriend, and my carreer seems to not have any future in my city, but I don't have enough money to travel, or to pay further education, nor enough experience (curse you EDS, you and your comorbidities) nor further education to get a job.
> 
> Sorry for the rant.
> 
> In this story... well, a non-accidental death is very complicated and requires a lot of investigation. Is my guess that this also happens in the Wizarding World, and even more if said death has to do something with the famous Harry Potter. I can't remember if ever was mentioned which particular post Kingsley had amongst the aurors, but I think that if he was high up enough to be on charge of protecting the Muggle Minister, he would be high up enough to take charge of Harry's case. Furthermore, Dumbledore would need someone to keep him updated.
> 
> On the other hand, people are very particular about the opinions they give reagarding the death of someone, and more if they can make asumptions about that. I heard someone tell a sordid tale of infidelity during the wake of my uncle, which was very interesting, given that that someone hadn't seen my uncle since he was in high school. The worst of all, if you live in a small comunity, is that there's always a tabloid willing to spin tales about your loved ones.
> 
> I think I'm going to stop here, this note seems longer than the story itself.
> 
> As always, the author would thank you if you point any typos you find. I'm a non-native speaker who is still afraid of writing the wrong things.


End file.
